Poppy’s heart, already so broken, no longer seemed to exist. In her chest, where it had once been the centre of her body’s functioning, was just a black, inky void.

‘I want you to go now.’ She stared at him, and all the love she felt morphed into something closer to hatred. She despised him. She despised the way he lived his life, even though, in a calmer moment, she might have conceded that she could understand it. But now, she was hurting and breaking, falling apart at the seams, and she just wanted him to go away again. This was a torment, the prolonging of an agony she’d thought she’d already navigated. She’d thought she’d seen him for the last time and had stepped into her post-Adrastos life. She didn’t much like it, but at least she’d taken those first few steps and survived.

‘I need you to go,’ she amended softly, eyes huge in her face.

He swore, shook his head. ‘This makes no sense.’

Of course it didn’t make any sense to Adrastos. His heart wasn’t on the line. His heart wasn’t anywhere near the playing field.

‘I don’t understand.’

She nodded slowly. ‘I know that.’

‘I want to understand.’

She toyed with her necklace, a fine chain she’d bought herself when she graduated university. It reminded her of another necklace, one far grander, that Adrastos had wanted her to wear.

But how could she explain any of this to him?

‘Our relationship did what it was supposed to. There was no point prolonging it, and so I came home.’

‘That’s very logical, except for one point: you lied to me. If it was all so simple, why not tell me that at the time?’

She blanched. She couldn’t answer that.

‘Tell me the truth. Why did you run away from me?’

Poppy groaned. ‘Please, Adrastos, if you care about me at all, you’ll just let it go and leave me in peace.’

He drew himself up to his full height, inhaled so his chest puffed out, then spoke quietly, in a measured tone, that was somehow at odds with the emotions swirling in his eyes. ‘Let me be clear: you want me to walk out of that door and have that be the end of it? You want me to leave, and let you leave for your new job, and we will never speak of this again? Is that what you wish?’

No, her insides screamed, but Poppy nodded, her voice quivering. ‘Please.’

He glared at her, his nostrils flaring, and she held her breath, until finally he spun on his heel, stalked towards the door, yanked it open and left, just as she’d asked him to, and this time she was pretty sure it would be for good.

The car drove him through the streets he knew so well, black body, black windows, as black as his mood, and with each mile he travelled he felt as though his head were getting closer and closer to exploding from the ravaging, pounding of his blood, he felt as though his skin were being stretched and his mood becoming apocalyptically awful until he leaned forward and said to his security guy, ‘Take me back.’

The words emerged as a growl, or maybe even a threat. Adrastos didn’t care. He sat back in his seat, stared out of the window and tried to shape his feelings into order, and then from that order to form words to explain them to someone else. By the time he’d arrived back at Poppy’s, he still wasn’t sure what was driving him, and he sure as hell didn’t know how to relay that to Poppy, but he wasn’t just going to disappear from her life.

‘I told you to go away,’ she said, through tears, so many tears, so he pushed the door shut and this time did exactly what he’d wanted to before: he wrapped her in his arms, pulled her against his chest and just...held her there. He held her while she sobbed and he stroked her hair gently and whatever words he’d wanted to say still wouldn’t come out but it didn’t matter because she was crying and he had it within his power to make her feel better just by being there.

And he wanted to be there.

He wanted toalwaysbe there, whenever she needed him, and whenever she didn’t. He wanted to watch her soar, but also to be there when she didn’t, or thought she couldn’t.

He just wanted...her.

‘Poppy, I don’t want to leave.’

She sobbed. That strange ache in his chest spiralled and he realised now what was hurting—his heart. His heart hurt.

In a way it hadn’t done for years, if ever.

‘I get it. I understand now. I understand why you left. Why you lied to me. I understand why everything I said to you was possibly the worst thing in the world. I understand now what I didn’t then because I understand us better.’

‘You’re not making any sense,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, I am. For the first time in years, possibly.’ He caught her face, tilted it to him, because he needed to see her and, more importantly, he needed her to see him, to see the truth in his eyes.